NEW DELHI (20/9/200) - STUNG by rising edible oil imports and only asmall increase expected in kharif oilseeds crop, government has prepareda blueprint on derived oilseeds like cotton and perennial crops likecoconut and oil palm to increase the domestic production.

"There is a tremendous scope for increasing India's edible oil productionby better organising of the cottonseed and rice bran crushers, increasingacreage of perennial crops like oil palm and tapping tree-borne oilseeds,all of which government will promote," said S K Batra, head of thetechnology mission of oilseeds, pulses and maize.

The plan was to bring more of cottonseed and rice bran crushing into theorganised sector as the current industry structure led to considerablyless oil extraction than the available potential.

He said at present 96 per cent of the cottonseed crushing was in theunorganised sector where oil recovery was only 11 per cent compared to 16per cent in the organised sector.

This resulted in at least 2.12 lakh tonnes of oil being lost against anactual output of 4.7 lakh tonnes last year from 42.3 lakh tonnescottonseeds available for crushing.

Batra said an eight-point proposal from the cottonseed crushers was underconsideration which included tax reliefs and subsidies for importingmachinery, modernisation and incorporating technical knowhow.

Similarly, one-third of the rice-bran oil industry was in the unorganisedsector due to which against the actual potential of 9 lakh tonnes oilonly 5 lakh tonnes was realised, he added.

Around 6.2 lakh tonnesof more oil could be obtained from rice bran andcottonseed alone, he said. (PTI)